Haven’t they figured out that the number of people who are paying attention to global warming is growing by leaps and bounds? Just ask pollsters in Houston, Galveston, Florida, New Orleans, etc.

I have a friend who gave me S&N’s book, and a few months ago, I told him that the “contest” was NOT about technological breakthroughs, it was about economic contraction v. building renewable infrastructure.

Voila! Now that the market has dropped 40%, economic contraction is here.

I only hope we can get a lot of infrastructure before we get hit with the NEXT contraction: when oil supplies start to decrease 3-6% per year.

I also find S&N very irritating to read. They talk about “environmentalists” in such derogatory and patronizing terms I couldn’t read any more. I’ll be the first to say that the likes of NRDC and EDF are more corporate than anything else, but nonetheless S&N are just so much blabbing.

In the final analysis, S&N are simply shills.

* When will your plan reduce carbon emissions and by how much?

* How much will it cost & who is going to pay for it?

You get pretty deep into the weeds on this stuff, but fail to answer the most basic questions on climate policy.

Come on, please….

that’s a strong position, leaving out that detail. somewhat telling.

Wow! Romm is clearly motivated to battle S&N. What a litany! But in all his haste to attack, he seems to have missed the larger point: even if his own plan is better on paper, recent events suggest that it can’t be put into practice. S&N have written an article about how some greens, and the Democrats who listen to them, are out of touch with the American public and have been caught off guard by Republicans’ ability to unite support for off-shore drilling and other unhelpful delays. They make a compelling case that Americans are more concerned about energy prices in the short-term than they are about global catastrophe in the long-term. Knowing what we know about human psychology, this really shouldn’t be a surprise, but it seems like Chinese to Romm.

Then again, if one was reading S&N’s op-ed only for the purpose of lambasting it, maybe that rather simple point would be easily lost. Joe Romm clearly gave S&N such a reading. He begins his blogpost stating that he tries to ignore S&N and their “garbage,” but that this was too high-profile to go unchallenged. Then, rather than thoughtfully considering the potential virtues and weaknesses of their argument as a whole, he cuts it up into decontextualized chunks that are easier to distort and attack – often with more name-calling, straw-man pummeling, etc. Take Joe’s rant against S&N’s description of the differences between Americans’ perceptions of the Democrats’ and Republicans’ energy policies. If Joe had given the op-ed a fair reading, he would have recognized that the authors were lamenting the perception and enthusiasm gap between Obama’s comprehensive energy policy and the “inflate your tires” messaging that made it through the media. Instead, consciously or not, he disunderstood [yeah. I made up that word and it makes sense.] their piece to be an attack on Obama(?)! And even more bizarrely, he ended his tirade with a masculinity-challenging bet of a $1000 on the outcome of the election. Huh?

S&N’s point, as I have read them here and elsewhere, is not that cap and trade makes for bad policy. Cap and trade is actually a rather elegant policy prescription. The problem with cap and trade is that it makes for bad politics.

As much as Joe and all of us might want the American people to wake up to the disastrous consequences of our carbon guzzling economy, pay higher energy prices, reduce our energy usage, and gradually shift to greater use of renewables, S&N don’t see the public going for such a plan. They could be wrong, of course, but their argument doesn’t lack evidence. Anyone shocked by the policy reversals on off-shore drilling – first from McCain, then from the American people and pundits, then from the Democratic leadership – must worry at least momentarily that S&N are right, that Americans won’t agree to higher energy prices.
But Joe displays no time or care for such considerations. Instead, he is happier distorting the article through a partisan lens, smearing S&N as friends-of-Rove, and displaying (what he thinks are) his cajones with a public wager on the election. How about a modicum of intellectual maturity? What is really at issue between Joe and S&N is not some thousand dollar bet. It’s the answer to this question: Are Americans more likely to support legislation that will have the effect of raising energy prices, eventually getting them to clean energy; or legislation that would have the government invest in clean domestic energy research and infrastructure development?

This is a debate about the political viability of a funding mechanism and messaging strategy to avert global warming: cap and trade and fear-mongering or front-end investment and a focus on the future? Joe could be right. Maybe the “Drill, baby, drill!” chant was a fluke. Maybe the polling showing that Americans support off shore drilling is just plain wrong. Perhaps the polling showing that Americans treat Climate Change as a low priority is also wrong.

Of course, Joe chimes in on this one saying, “It is primarily the GOP that doesn’t care about human-caused global warming — and that of course is not the fault of greens.” But this is not a counter-argument to S&N’s contention. It’s merely a footnote displaying the limited nature of Romm’s thinking. In his world, if Democrats agree with the greens, the greens have done their job. In S&N’s world, we actually need a larger base of support if we hope to realistically face down a global climate crisis.

But I don’ want to pick on Joe too much. After all, both Joe and S&N are right in different ways. Joe continues to be right that the policies he wants are excellent policies if they can be implemented and supported over time. But, while it’s still technically an open question, S&N appear to be righter by the day about their contention that voters aren’t going to support Joe’s policies.

Political psychology supports the S&N argument, too. Humans, like all animals, tend to discount the future. We would much rather have “a bird in hand than two in the bush” and that makes us – on average – relatively poor long-term planners. Paying higher prices now to avert a catastrophe that some (wrong) people claim is never coming doesn’t appeal to as many Americans as we would like. We also don’t do well with self-imposed rules and limits. A big part of the reason Republicans have been able to win 7 of the last 10 elections is because their ideology has monopolized voters’ hatred of “regulations” and “bureaucracy.” But, and this is the most important point, we humans are especially unwilling to accept limits and share resources when we are placed in a psychological state of fear. Imagine it. You are a mammal in a harsh world with limited resources. When you are threatened, is your emotional-limbic system going to encourage you to give away your resources and cut off some of your individual options for escape? No. Your fear might prepare you for action (fight or flight response), but that action is as likely to be flight (escapism) as it is fight (actually struggling for a solution).

S&N, on the other hand, offer a policy agenda that is far more attuned to the everyday functioning of human psychology. (Greens, even if they don’t feel it is their responsibility to appeal to the ideology of Republicans, might at least consider appealing to their psychology. After all, they are not a different species.) The S&N plan has broader appeal – witness their rising popularity – because it invokes people’s feelings of control and optimism. It is exactly the kind of psychology that makes people feel like they are empowered to do something good. It is imaginative, visionary, inspirational. Rather than relying upon people’s fear, it organizes their thoughts about the future in terms of human achievement. And though American taxpayers would still end up paying for the S&N plan, they wouldn’t feel it coming out of their pockets.

Many of S&N’s critics seem to want to box in the specifics of their policy plan and nitpick the flaws. Such policy criticisms can be useful as we move forward toward the goal of a cleaner, cooler future. But no matter what policy we choose, we must be mindful of Americans’ willingness to back it. When we cast global warming as a horror to be avoided, people do want to avoid it. Unfortunately, they avoid it by putting it out of mind. When we cast cheap, clean energy as a smart and bold investment in an abundant future, people want to get on board at the ground level.

We can all grouse about how disappointing some of our voters are. And we can enjoy shooting the messengers. But ultimately, we have to work with the electorate we’ve got. What S&N are suggesting, I think, is that we embrace the (sometimes ridiculous) parameters that voters present to us and find a way to mobilize their support. Doesn’t seem like such a terrible idea to me.